Moreno Valley

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Today we drove to Victory Ranch, and you can refer to my entry on November 6 to find out about the traffic. We still have the Montana idea of a highway…roads that you’ll be able to travel quickly quickly from place to place. We drove through mountains that apparently weren’t there when our road map was printed, because it showed flat land…like the Sierra Nevada’s ended north of our route. Wrong. So we drove through mountains with a gazillion other cars and half again that many trucks. We just can’t get used to the number of people here!

On our previous projects I couldn’t think of enough words to explain the beauty of the area….I don’t think that will be a problem here! There are some very good points, but beautiful scenery isn’t what draws people to this are! We are in desert. Two weeks ago I wrote about the fires, and Victory being without power for a couple days; it had nothing to do with the fires, it had to do with the 100 mph winds that blew for two days. There were countless trees blown over, and branches broken off, and porches and patio decks torn off. The sand is drifted alongside the road like snow along the highway. And there’s trash (and blue swimming pools!) blown from who knows how far away. The sand had to be cleaned from the cabins, because there was a camp here over the weekend. Saturday a church from Hemet came out and helped trim branches, pick up fallen branches, and run as much as they could through the chipper-shredder. According to Paul and Germaine (who got here a week before we did) it looks 190% better than it did when they got here.

But it’s brown, bare dirt. The summer pictures of the camp show green on the hillsides, etc, but this is November, and there’s not much blooming. It’s just a different place, and will take a bit to adjust to. And we have flies. I could do without those! There’s a dairy barn across the road that everyone blames, but we saw the flies in Hemet, clinging to the sides of stores, so we think it’s not just a cow issue! Earl and Nancy, from New Hampshire, and Paul and Germaine, from Tennessee, think the flies are really bad, but we think it’s kind of like home! (So there’s one reason to grow up with the little pests!) The wind blows here some, but not hard. Ok, those Santa Ana winds were hard, but they were rare. This wind is more of a breeze~~stiff breeze, but a breeze. The big thing is that it’s 77 degrees today, and only got down to 58 last night. Yesterday was cloudy, and they predicted rain, but that didn’t happen. The temp was in the mid 60s, but the breeze was chilly. Kind of like September, where it’s warm in the sun, but chilly in the shade.

The men are going to be working on storm repairs. The women will be painting the metal furniture around the pool first. I’m not sure how the rust gets so bad, because the air is dry, although there’s humidity hanging over the fields in the evenings. I doubt if that sentence made any sense, but I’ll describe it more as I go along!

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Photos

The first tree I saw like this
I just thought it had been trimmed by an overzealous gardener, but then I began to see them all around. I thought they were very interesting....probably don't provide a lot of shade, but interesting! This is in Vasalia, not Moreno Valley!

Just another look
at the interesting tree/stick!

This orange tree was in the park
where we stayed in Vasalia. The navel oranges were mostly orange, but the park owner said they wouldn't be ready until Jan or Feb, after they'd been through a couple frosts. She let me pick one (honest!) and I was going to save it to let it get riper....by that afternoon when I ate it (much riper!!) it was sooooo good. I can't imagine how good they must be right off the tree when they're ready to pick.

Think we are in Montana?
So did we! It reminded us of the drive between Laurel and Columbus! We only saw these signs of the fire, and this was just for a short distance.

This was fascinating to watch
the little white blades turning. Ok, there wasn't much to look at, and it was near the end of the trip, but they were fun to watch!

This area had literally thousands
of wind turbines. We can't even guess how many acres they were on. (The land isn't burned, it's just desert...welcome to this part of California!)

Can you see the mountains
on the right? The whole trip from Vasalia to Moreno Valley had this thick air~~we don't know if it was smog, or just fog, or what.

I'm not sure what's in this air,
but I don't trust air you can see. It was very warm, so I know part of it is humidity, but what's the rest?

Welcome to Moreno Valley...
several miles still out! Bob does such a good job driving the bus through cities....as long as he has directions in ample time. We've discussed that, and now he gets them in better time!
Notice air quality again!

Comments

[bob and carrell evans]

catawpa trees
Not sure of the spelling, but believe the hacked trees are catawpa trees. They cut them back in the fall, and in the spring and summer they produce branches of large leaves, great for shade, with pretty smelling flowers and eventually poisonous pods. We had them in WA, too.

[Danielson]

Carrell is my west coast consultant...
even though she now lives in Montana! She also reminded me that in Spanish, moreno means brown....Moreno Valley depicts its name very well!

[Jean]

Back with you!
Finally had a chance to catch up with you, had been wondering where you were in respect to the fires in CA. How long have you had this thing for trees??? Actually they are very unusual! Keep on keeping! Love you!